choosing your name

the dredge wears you down
dig it back through the earth
the clock dragged through the soil
no face purely its own

blueprint

original?
how far back for that?

the wild mother scrapes the cave
children with grown up hands
looking for origins
wrinkled eyes

grasping at the newest flesh

super market baby
divinely robbed
placed on the couch

the new girl tires of the old man
a young one wouldn't treat her to so many gifts
or love her enough to shoot her in the back

and your revolution
must it be staggeringly new?

write the expected outcome
refuse them their malleable natures
the water taking more earth
the costumes growing tighter
authenticity called into question

the celebrity scandal cleaner than one thought

and therefore tainted

for the girl in the fire is not enough to take notice of

revolutions are remembered
they ride out on fireworks

but enough ale shows the empire in its future rags

and long before that, there was a prophet

fire smoke burning matters of time
glazed violence
savage as a strict geographical trait
and pigment has something to do with it as well

and you're starting to forget
the reason
that you
started(?)

draw your axis on the void
spin the chances into spiral stairs
don't lose your eyes in the reflections

the superstitious believe
and the profane believe not to

and now?
the real now?

the time that no other time seeps into
cracks in the windows sealed
the days before not seething inside you

that time
do you know this time?

dredge the ashes from the fireplace

reassemble them

try to make them what they were
before the matter broke

down

into all the other author's opinions

through your two way mirror
with your lust for accolades
claim the revolution

deny them the flexibility
inherent in their fingers

saving the calendar
forgetting what it felt like in your hands
at the time

attractive nonetheless

never wanting to fall asleep slowly
time without action loses its axis
and the images drown as they try to prove
that it is their right now
again
more important than today
than laying your head down
and savoring the texture
of the sheets
now feeling too tight across your toes

the old days stronger than when they happened

happened being finite
events being finite

never bleeding into what is

REALLY GOING ON RIGHT NOW

texture

texture is now

-------------

propulsion in the realm of the infinite

-------------

reflections of self

-------------

back through the soil
clutch at the substance
make your case for history
excavate the division
and hone it
to precision

too much weight on the structure
direction
falls
the retreat is the flood

thinking yourself into sleeping on the kitchen floor

have you tried to pin it down like this?
not that you can see what I am talking about
I should draw it

the bedrock looks like lace dipped in gray paint
the buckets lining the path to the rows of bricks
covered in white sheets, the scissors cut them easily
and the red of the wall comes off on your fingers
like a chalk and you run it down your arm

hear noises no description
maybe the sound of tin in the microwave
green sparks on plastic
the hum of what's melting

the stove as seen from the floor
looks like the side of a hospital
I imagine myself a window
getting smaller not a problem

after the last day

on the couch
the lies slipped down the sides of your fingers
you bent down to scrape the bones up off the floor
building new mobiles
that look dead when the wind doesn't blow

you look out the window
the glass the same as the lights of the city
the trees lean away from you
trying to drag their branches on the lawn
that has been manicured to the point
where the garden looks like the entrance to a mall

you exhale slowly
trying to see something in your breath
your knuckles on the carpet
you think about the substance of touch
cold tile might be better

you could call the workmen tomorrow
or rattle the ice in your glass

working part time at the grammar school
had helped for awhile
the children's legs made circles in the air
anything to keep in motion
direction not yet a factor

blowing the whistle
watching them file inside

the kids started to make fun of you
for always holding an umbrella, regardless of the weather

they asked why
and you explained that you were allergic to the sun

and then the one laughed
and all the rest followed
saying that if you were a plant
you'd be dead